June 29, 2006

So I saw a junior high student at the supermarket and told her mom how she was a good and kind student. Her mother said, "Not in OUR house!" As I was baggin my groceries (you bag your own groceries over here), the student came out of nowhere and handed me an icecream cone. Nice.--Unrelated to the kindness of the student...Isn't it funny that some of our most altruistic desires are simultaneously our most selfish ones?

June 28, 2006

June 27, 2006

So picture it: I am doing the English lesson for cable TV yet again. This time we are shooting in the school library for I don't know what reason. The rain is pouring. We come to the final part of my speech, where I explain in Tara-dialect about practicing dancing for summer festivals. I get a gleam in my eye, and tell my translator a good idea I just had.So the final shot is me and two cable television workers dancing matsuri style. But the funniest part, and the highlight of my day, was when we were waiting for the sound of the rain to die down so we could film this scene. I spied one of the men, tall and lanky, walking through the shelves of books, practicing his moves with a kind of mock-seriousness. I suppose you could say it was kind of like this.

June 26, 2006

No one responds to meme tags anymore (they probably don't read them either), so I'll just skip that part. I am still too polite to refuse myself, so here is what Mandy ordered me to answer:

5 Things In My refrigerator- 2 quarts of milk (more milk than in any other fridge in Japan)- bread ('tis the moldy season)- Various sauces left by my predecessor. I should throw those out...- Champon noodles- A Natto slime-stain

5 Things In My Closet- Clothes, duh.- Giant suit cases. Hmmm, running out of stuff, better make it up...- A vampire's ashes.- An illegal alien.- My black-as-coal heart. This makes me effectively immortal, unless someone were to find my heart and destroy it. But no one knows where it is so no worries...

June 24, 2006

First, I must direct you to The Thief and the Cobbler. A lost animated movie that thankfully ended up on the net. It's pretty impressive, considering it started production in 1968, and some scenes are unanimated. The animator definitely had an appreciation of the oriental pattern-art. And Vincent Price voice acting for the win.-- On a certain day, some of Nasreddin's disciples asked him "Master, tell us about the end of the world."

Nesreddin asked "Which end of the world, the greater or the lesser?"

This perplexed his followers and they debated among themselves. Finally they asked, "Master, what is the lesser end of the world?"

Nesreddin replied "The lesser end of the world will be when my wife dies."

June 20, 2006

So this is one of my photodumps, but I have a creepy mystery for you too. A couple weeks back, me and the girlfriend were driving through the dark, coming back from the equivilent of Tara-town's own Joe's Crab Shack, when we spotted a guy. Now the odd thing about this guy was, well, he was lowering himself into the space between the road and a bridge/walkway. His back was to us, and as we watched he dissapeared to an unknown fate below! We both went, "こわい!" (scary) at the time, but we rationalized that it only looked like he was jumping into a casm and possibly commiting suicide. Also the news around town didn't mention any suicides. But I wasn't sure, so I went back in the daylight. The photo clearly shows that there are no stairs nor a ladder, and the straight drop is like 20 to 30 feet. So even if he had, say, a boat waiting below, it would be a risky drop to say the least. That is, if he was human. But what if he's not? What if he is fact a member of a secret race of crab men? Think about it. Tara is full of crabs. Crabs have exoskeletons, therefore they can fall great heights. So I think the only rational explanation is that he was a crab man dropping back into his normal habitat. He probably came out to feed on the flesh of humans.

So my epiphany, the x-factor as it were. Something that has be thus far missing from my loving-hippie style repetoir: Don't point out when something is doing or saying something you disagree with. It's so simple, I don't know why I didn't see it before.Of course there will have to be exceptions. Times when you can't just lay back and let any crazy stuff be said. For example, I remember a movie I watched in school once about Neonazis. The Jewish people said amongst themselves, "Maybe we should just let them have their Nazi demonstration. Nobody will listen to them." But then another said, "That's what we did in Germany. And we know what happened with the Nazis we tried to ignore there."But the exceptions should be few and far between, as Nazi-types are out of fashion. Besides, as virtue is its own reward, so too is bigotry its own punishment. If I have time to complain about someone else, there's probably something better I could be doing.The other challenge will be to be assertive while trying to hold to this. apologies if the blogs have been angst-filled the last few days, I'll try to bring the funny tonight.

June 19, 2006

Am I hypocritical to hate negativity? I'm not sure. On the one hand, I want to send love out to all that I meet. I've even refrained from saying bad things about people pretty well since I made the promise to myself in spring. And yet, I still face conflict when I deal with some people. Why must this be? I guess I choose my own reaction to people, and they choose their reactions to me. So, I think an attitude of "nothing is wrong, everything is beautiful" might get me through these prickly times.Besides, as the girlfriend advised me, you can't be friends with everyone. Danged if I aint obsessed with trying though.

June 16, 2006

I am not so much into Sudoku. You would think it would be the perfect thing to appeal to a boy that had a mathematician grandfather on one side, and a pair of artist grandparents on the other. But I know a lot of friends and family, not to mention someone's fiance, likes Sudoku. So I thought I would share with you what is, in my opinion (which is right 88.965% of the time--and scientists are working on the remainder) the best Sudoku on the net. You will see why when you try to play it.So go here. Thank me later, over some hot cocoa, as we laugh about our adventures in the lands of the Serengety. "But Clay, besides that not making sense, I've never been to--" "Oh you will, my friend. You will. You can't even imagine the doors that open for you when you play Sudoku on the web."

June 12, 2006

I would do some proper update but I'm still recovering from food poisoning. Apparently, every Japanese person knows "you must be careful during this season." Why the change to a hotter climate is dangerous I don't know. Anyways, check out this guy's language practice. He really get's into it.

Someone got me ranting about these. Anyways here's my recommendations. For more useful Japanese, see the links (scroll to the far right if you have a small screen and/or resolution.

WWWJDICThis one will let you do romaji, but you gotta remember to click the box. I recommend starting to type in hirigana asap anyways; it helps out more than you can imagine.

ALCThis one is intended for Japanese people who are trying to figure out american idioms and such. But it works even better for us. Now you can look up crazy phrases like "TGIF" (Yareyare yatto kinyobi da!). And it also works as a good dictionary and example sentence finder

But Clay, ALC uses kanji! Well, I recommend getting Firefox and the rikaichan plugin. Wiki firefox if you haven't seen the light, the wiki Firefox plugins too. BTW, Rikaichan is a dictionary in it's own right, and a powerful one at that,just don't forget to download the appropriate dictionary file too, or it's useless.

June 7, 2006

The fields are burning as my train rushes by. A slideshow of a little, agricultural apocalypse. Whatever was the crop before this season, it is being cremated. I wonder if the farmers say a little prayer. Goodbye, sweet smelling friends. Hello new friends.

Did some rice farming yesterday. The Japanese family I was with no doubt had been working all day; I showed up at about an hour to go. They insisted I wear a farmer's hat, boots, and overshirt. I thought this made me look remarkably like grandma, who was working alongside the family. They let me drive the tractor. I was amazed by the ingenious wonder of a machine than can grab a few sprouts and plant them with stacatto precision. I also did some planting the old fashioned way (by hand) in the corners of the flooded paddy. I learned how the irigation system works, it's brilliant simplicity. I helped create a dam to level the water in an unlevel paddy. I felt proud.Later, there was obligitory dining. Table-top grilling of meats and vegitables, plus sashimi. I ate the most, but there was still plates of uncooked food when I gave up.The girls of the house first regarded me as monster, then in gradual stages something to hit, yell at, then finally play with and read to. I learned a lot about beatles and magical princess comunicators.

I walk along the street at night, as I have done so many times before. But this time, a field to my left is flooded, As the train passes, the lights from inside it are cast in reflection upon the water's surface. It is utterly picturesque, yet I don't have a camera. Even if I did, this instance of phatasmagoric beauty in the night is much too swift for me to capture.

June 6, 2006

This is for a yearbook project someone in the prefecture is throwing together. These are the people I annoy hang out with the most. Keep in mind caricatures are in the spirit of fun, Takeo people! So no complaining I made your head fat or something. Angus.

June 1, 2006

The request will come in a sec, but first, as usual when dealing with Clay, you will get a little story. Then maybe you will get an idea of how my mind works, which reminds me that I once said to Rachel, "I'm not really that random, and you would see so if you could follow my 'seven-degrees of Kevin Baconesque' mind set." Confused yet? Anyways...I've discovered some really interesting audio study aids for Japanese lately. Today, I found Japanese101. In addition to being a good study aid, it is a hilarious podcast. These people have chemistry that makes studying fun. So check it out, especially if you have an interest in learning Japanese. BTW-- I had another subpiphany today. By subpiphany, I mean I realized I was suddenly just that much more better at Japanese. It's strange to notice this sort of thing. "Wait, I can understand the conversations better today!"You can find more good study aids in my links to the right; I use them all day between classes to study.

And on to the request. I think I have a lot of readers that don't comment. While I don't have a problem with this persay, it's somehow disturbing. It's like you feel like you are being watched. You know someone is around the corner back there, but you don't know who. So, my request is simple: If you read this blog, take the time to comment and tell me who you are. While you are doing that, let me know if you find it boring when I blog about Japanese studying (see the connection now?), or what you would like me to blog about more often. Also, while your there, try to give a guess as to what movie is featured in the photo up there.This request goes double for the people that live in Saga. It's not hard, click the comments link and write your name. Pretty please.